In the case of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in 2007, the Portuguese public prosecutor’s office has declared one person “officially accused”. The public prosecutor’s office in the Faro region did not give a name in a statement published on the Internet – but it emphasized that German authorities had taken action on the basis of an international request for legal assistance from the Portuguese public prosecutor’s office.
Portuguese and British media assume that it is the 45-year-old who is currently in custody in Germany. The then three-year-old Maddie disappeared from an apartment complex in southern Portugal’s Praia da Luz in 2007. The case made headlines around the world. In June 2020, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Braunschweig public prosecutor announced that the imprisoned German Christian B. was suspected of murder. The 45-year-old is currently serving a several-year prison sentence in Oldenburg for raping a woman near Praia da Luz in 2004.
The formal designation of a person as a suspect does not constitute an indictment, but is a prerequisite for an indictment. The measure also breaks the statute of limitations, which under Portuguese law applies to murder after 15 years. That would have been in a few days, the girl disappeared on May 3, 2007.